Terry Zwigoff' ("Ghost World"/"Bad Santa"/"Crumb")
misanthropic,
confrontational satire on the art scene is an inspired
work based on
the
comic book story Eightball by Daniel Clowes (studied
art at Pratt
Institute
in Brooklyn). The uneven comedy gets lost in too many
ideas and in all
its subplots that include a murder mystery, a
cartoonish depiction of
an
art school, the travails of a young artist who aspires
to be the next
Picasso
and the depiction of the art world as being in bed
with the business
world.
The pompous, self-important targets the filmmaker aims
for are as easy
to get as shooting ducks in the pond. Also the hero is
not a very
likable
fellow who displays little sensitivity, little
integrity, mucho naivety
and lots of ambition, which makes it hard to
sympathize with him when
things
break wrong. The sour Zwigoff takes cheap shots at
everyone and reduces
everyone to a bad cliché, but fails to take
shots at his wise-ass
protagonist (alter ego of Clowes) that get to the
bone. But the cruel
humor
has some zip, as it's delivered with conviction and
zeal. It comes to
the
dismal conclusion that the art world scene is for the
nerds and
assholes
to get revenge on the bullies.

Warning: spoiler in the next
paragraph.

In his suburban school days the bland and nerdy
Jerome
Platz (Max
Minghella, son of the noted director Anthony
Minghella) is picked on by
the school bullies and rejected by the hot babes, but
aspires to be the
greatest artist of the 21st century and thereby score
the most
beautiful
chicks. Talented in drawing, he attends a fictional
art school in
Manhattan
called Strathmore Institute and lives in the dorm with
insensitive and
uncommunicative roommates, the obnoxious aspiring
filmmaker Vince
(Ethan
Suplee) and the still in the closet fashion designer
major Matthew
(Nick
Swardson). Jerome's naturalistic portrait of model
Audrey (Sophia
Myles),
the girl of his dreams and the nude model on the
school brochure that
lured
him to attend, is not appreciated by his mediocre
fellow students
and his
poseur, self-promoting art teacherProfessor
Sandiford
(Professor
Sandiford) who can't tell the difference between the
schlock and the
more
proficiently technical art. The teachers are viewed as
careerist losers
who teach because their art work sucks. Sandiford
draws triangles for
the
last 25 years that don't sell, Professor Okamura (Jack
Ong) tells his
students
he doesn't care if they attend his class and another
art history
professor
(Anjelica Huston) relies on her dignity to get over
while she delivers
banal lectures. Through another sour student named
Bardo (Joel David
Moore),
who childishly breaks everyone down to fit a certain
mold and is given
to popping off with gross remarks such as "this school
is like a pussy
buffet," Jerome is introduced to an older embittered
alcoholic--a
former
Strathmore student named Jimmy (Jim Broadbent). The
failed artist lives
in a tenement in the nearby slum and it soon becomes
easy to figure out
he's the strangler the police are looking for after a
number of random
killings on the campus, but the self-absorbed Jerome
is too blind to
notice
that and obtains the derelict's paintings so he can
win over Audrey,
his
objet d'art, from the handsome square looking joe
named Jonah (Matt
Keeslar).
He's a married undercover cop posing as an art student
who has won the
model over with his looks and has won the art class
over with his
seductive
lesser art pieces, while they reject Jerome's more
accomplished work.
By
the end Jerome sells his soul and loses his identity
to win over the
narcissistic
and fickle Audrey and gain recognition through
notoriety, as he turns
in
Jimmy's violent paintings of the murders as his own
and is happy as a
lark
that his career has taken off once jailed as the
strangler.

It was messy, crass and bleak, but it was very funny
in
spots, as
the film was not compromised and it had a
self-confident bitter air of
speaking as the voice of truth (though I can hardly
agree with the
film's
overly simplified notion that the main reason one
becomes an artist is
to get even with bullies and score chicks, which
sounds like sour
grapes)
as it was thumbing its nose at all the frauds that
pose as artist, the
students and teachers who use art to have a safe
career and the
opportunists
who despite their limited talent get to the top
because they know who
to
blow or just luck out and hit on something that's hot.
In the end,
Zwigoff
makes a rather interesting point when it's revealed
that the American
public
has a greater appreciation for a serial killer than an
artist. The
strange
thing about that viewpoint is that it might be true
and all the bile
spilled
here about the pretentiousness of the art world might
also be true,
even
if the film is awkward and not completely fair the way
it puts forth
its
arguments. I would still rather see a flawed film like
this one that
tries
to say something that is provocative than a safe and
better made film
that
has no intention of ruffling the feathers of the
public.